Once I lived carelessly and thought that the translator of games did not need anything except a good knowledge of languages, imagination and love for his work. But then I grew up, got a job and found out that transferring games to the console is a minefield where you have no right to make a mistake. What can be saddened by the life of a localization specialist who works with console projects? He has to know everything about what many do not even suspect: about the requirements of first parties (or console manufacturers) Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. You delve into their instructions, learn, understand the intricacies of translation for a particular platform ... and now you yourself do not notice how you start correcting your friends when they call the controller a gamepad, and get mad at the headlines like "PlayStation 4 - new generation console ".

The whole point is that the life of any console game from concept to release itself is inextricably linked with the manufacturers of the platforms on which it comes out. And each localized version will be released only after Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo have carefully checked and approved it. And they will approve it only if all their requirements are met. These requirements are many, they are not always obvious, and in order to comply with them, flawless knowledge of the subject is a prerequisite for the entire localization team. What happens if the localization fails the test? Most likely, the release of the game will be delayed, and such a scenario is very, very undesirable for developers, publishers, and what is already there, gamers.

Therefore, today I will tell you in general about the most important things that everyone involved in the localization of such projects should be concerned with.
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Achievements and prizes (Achievements and Trophies)

An integral part of any game on PlayStation and Xbox. Someone treats them cool, someone will not calm down until he gets them all. It is these people who spend hours running around the map in search of some kind of coffer or feather, go through the game time after time, and perform the whole range of developer tasks.

At the same time, the translation of achievements and prizes is almost the most important task, which takes a lot of time, considering that their volume usually does not exceed 200 words. Rumor has it that achievements and prizes check the hardest. It is not surprising - it is a small amount of text, it is always in sight, and here it’s so easy to make a mistake ... Why?

Basically because for achievements there is a limit on the length of the line. And not all translators know about it, and if they do, they periodically forget. To understand what restrictions are imposed on achievement, it is necessary to understand its anatomy.



Let's turn to the examples of achievements from Fallout: New Vegas. Three achievements are already unlocked, and one is not. Each achievement must have a title (Title). Unlocked achievements have a description (Description), i.e. an explanation of what you got the achievement. Unblocked - instead of a description, there is a so-called how-to, i.e. an explanation of what needs to be done to get an achievement. In this example, the How-to is written in the imperative, and the descriptions are already in the past tense. This is not a canon. You can do without How-to and write all in one time. In Russian, we often translate the description of the infinitive (Get, collect, kill ...). If there is also a How-to in the game and they need to be differentiated, then for descriptions we use a passive voice (100 enemies are killed), and for How-to - the good old infinitive.

But we talked about restrictions on the length of the drain. On the Xbox 360, the limit for translating the title is 32 characters. The how-to and description should not be longer than 100 characters.

What traps have prepared us manufacturers PlayStation? And no. For PS prizes there is no limit on the length of the string. But since most games are now released on several platforms, the set of achievements and prizes is the same and Xbox requirements automatically apply to them.

Another important requirement is that the terminology used in achievements and prizes should correspond to the in-game one. Although, of course, terminological uniformity is generally a standard requirement for the texts of any game. For example:

Title Strike! Hit!

Description Kill 5 enemies using turnips Kill five enemies with turnips.

How to Kill 5 enemies using turnips Kill five enemies with a turnip.

Everything is good here, if turnip in your game is translated everywhere as “turnip”. But if yesterday you translated turnip as “swede” or “turnip” everywhere in translation ecstasy, and today you translate achievements, and your muse whispers: “Everything is fine, there was a turnip”, then you have problems. And this is not about voices in my head. After all, in fact, with your translation you are confusing the player. He needs to kill the enemies with turnips, and he only has a mysterious turnip. Therefore, a game with such a translation has negligible chances of being allowed to be released on the Xbox or PS.

Rich presence

Rich Presence is a string with information about what your friend is currently doing. Happiness to translate these lines falls to us only when working with a game that goes to the Xbox. This is a real translation fatality, since there has not yet been a single project where all of the languages ​​were immediately translated correctly. Given that both we and our colleagues are well aware of the requirements for the translation of these cunning lines. What is the matter? Yes, just many in the real game of their eyes have never seen! I belong to the number of these people, so if anyone has a screenshot, I will be grateful. RPs are lost in the general mass of text to be translated, and for them there is a very strict limitation on length (maximum 22 characters on two lines), which, by chance, is practically impossible to observe. Let's take a look at an example.

Fooling around in the Main Menu (31 characters)


Here, even in the source text, the restriction is violated. This confuses unsuspecting translators. The correct translation should look like this (if you write everything in one line, then there will be 25 characters):


Fooling around (8 characters)

in the main menu! (15 characters)

Terminology

This is perhaps the most obvious. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have strictly fixed translation options for all key languages ​​for each button and wiring. And each button and wiring must be called in the translation exactly as Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft want. Console manufacturers provide very detailed glossaries and regularly update them. Therefore, it seems that everything is simple, and so it is. But, as usual, it was not without aggravating circumstances.



In Russian glossaries for consoles, there are three terms that sound the same in English, but for some reason are translated into Russian differently depending on the platform. The same is in almost all other languages. So, here they are these chameleon terms:

Term	PS	Xbox
Controller	Controller	Gamepad
Stick	Joystick	Mini joystick
Downloadable content	Downloadable materials	Downloadable content

Why does this make our lives harder? Because often the lock on all platforms is contained in one Excel document. And the translator has to figure out by the ID of the strings, to which platform one or another line with an insidious term belongs. If ID strings do not give a definite answer, then you have to ask the customer what they had in mind.

Sometimes there are situations when the requirements of manufacturers of consoles are driving us to a standstill. For example, you need to translate the word Stick, and the limit on the length of a string is 6 characters. And we can do nothing in this case, because there are no permitted abbreviations for this term.

The devil is in the details

As you already understood, it’s not only in the correct terminology, there are also other requirements that cannot be violated: capitalization, use of trademark marks, abbreviations, gaps and other little things that seem insignificant. It would seem, what is easier? Do everything as in English. Written there PlayStation 3, and write. Written Xbox LIVE - means, and in the Russian language so be it. But the translator of games for consoles cannot trust the source text, since there are often errors there. He can only rely on his own knowledge.

You write Xbox LIVE instead of Xbox Live, and the game is not allowed to be released. Skip the trademark mark in the PlayStation3 title - the same. Of course, in reality, things may not be so strict, but formally, console manufacturers have the right to even find fault with this.

Entertainment system

Well, lastly, don't forget that the Xbox and Nintendo are consoles, but the PlayStation is a system. Nobody forces you in a usual life to refuse such convenient term as the console. But if suddenly you have talks with Sony representatives, then you know what to do.



Well, that was the tip of the iceberg. Many times I have seen violations of the requirements of manufacturers of consoles in games already released. This means that even if we make a mistake, we will be able to avoid fatal consequences, because the verifier may also not notice the error. But since most of us do not like this kind of extreme, we'd better go over and reread all the instructions once more.

Now you know that in the life of a game translator is not so simple. And if someday you ask a friend to bring a couple of controllers for the Xbox, and he will correct you, do not be offended - just your friend loves his work very much.